On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 02:12:30 GMT, WooHoo2You wrote:

5) Since you opened up the case to put in the sound card, you should have
been able to determine which cable was for the front sound ports.

The way my case is designed all the front ports are tied together with no
labels (media card, firewire, usb, sound), and their source is hidden. So
their case has a "cool" rounded front, that has no visible way to remove.

I recently got an HP computer, and spent some time in the wee
hours last night browsing HP's website. I found a good amount of
information about the computer (including graphics) which I saved as
HTML files. The ones I saved (using my own descriptive file names)
we

Replacing 5 inch drives
Replacing CPU
Replacing Hard Drives
Replacing PCI cards
Replacing Sound Card
Updating Software & Drivers
Updating the BIOS
Upgrading Memory
Determining CMOS battery failure
Dull or Oxidized PCB
Finding Model Number
Finding Processor info
Motherboard
Product Specifications

One of them (possibly the one describing how to change hard
drives) explained how to open the computer's front, rounded case
cover. The file on "Finding Processor info" described several
locations where some of the information was stored, but the neatest
tip was to type Control Alt S, which pops up a window showing
support information, including the computer's model #, product #,
serial #, software build #, hardware BOM # (whatever BOM means),
software BOM #, and service ID.

I suppose it's harder locating needed information when you really
need it fast. But most of it should be there for your computer too,
including information about the model number of the motherboard and
its manufacturer. Some of the locations provide generic information
that's only vaguely applicable to any particular computer. But if
you find the right place on HP's website, you'll get lots of
information specific to your individual computer, and it all seems
to be more accurate than what I'd seen from other sources. For
instance, at Best Buy, I was shown a screen showing the detailed
hardware spec's for my computer, and among other things it said that
the computer had no serial or parallel ports, and was told that its
2GB of memory occupied all of its 4 memory sockets. I saw a
parallel port connector on the back of the computer in the store,
but was told that it wasn't connected to anything. It turned out
that HP's documentation on their website was more accurate, showing
that the computer did indeed have a parallel port, and that the 2GB
of memory occupied only 2 of the 4 memory slots. This was a
pleasant surprise, since it will cost me much less if I ever decide
to add more memory. And if my hands are small enough I might be
able to add it without having to remove the drive bay. But if I do
need to remove it, I have the documentation showing how to do it.